I'm not sure what they're telling me: that I'm being stubborn? They could also just be telling me that polyamory doesn't make them specifically happy, and that I should find people that value it.

Poly Amory is a very strong filter. By that, I mean if that is your primary filter for partners, you may be filtering out most other desirable combinations of traits.

This is NOT me trying to talk you out of it. This is me saying that you need to decide what is a deal breaker for you, and not compromise. By the same token, you need to be willing to compromise where you can.

By the way, to an older man, your ideas of how couples communicate, seem... naive. Again, not saying not possible, just unlikely.

You are the ivy league grad here. What are the odds of finding the unlikely subset of the rare subset, of the minority subset of the.... Ad nauseum.

Then, when you have found her, have you developed into the man she wants to keep?

Being the man who found and married his unicorn, I don't wish to dissuade you. My point is that you need to be flexible where you can in your search, and ensure that you can keep her when you find her, you may not get another chance.

Good news: my connection with one of the affectionate close friends is transitioning more into a relationship-type connection (extended cuddling, long-conversations, cooking, hw together, etc.) while mutually agreeing to maintain the ACF label. The other has admitted to accepting me as a polyamorous man even if she herself is monogamous. Both have been really clear and open communicators, even right down to negotiations and re-negotiations! And if my previous PP reaches out, I know what I can and cannot offer. More importantly, I don't feel lonely anymore and I don't desperately miss her anymore. Yay! Looks like things will be just fine.

Meanwhile, I'm going to read my books on breakups for when SHTF later in life, and hopefully to avoid this seemingly bottomless fall from happening again.

I also need to work on polishing my OKc just like I diligently worked on my resume, CL, and interviewing skills. I'll find a unicorn yet! Though I don't have to, because I don't need a unicorn, just a few clear communicatin' polyam or monogamous people I enjoy spending time with and who accept me as I am.

I also found a cuddly cat in my bed that my roommate is taking care of.

: 3

Last edited by TopHatFox on Fri Mar 17, 2017 8:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ego said: I've never seen a healthy long-term relationship with a relatively balanced power dynamic that was less than exclusive. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I've just never seen it with my own eyes. But I guess I could be wrong...

... Ego and Mrs. Ego are enjoying a celebratory picnic in a lovely setting. A couple approaches. It's Gianluigi Buffon and Alena Seredova. They congratulate Mrs. Ego on winning the race which they just happened upon as they wandered into this charming village in the countryside. The Egos invite them to join them on their blanket.

The evening passes in delightful interaction. They laugh. They eat. They share. Wait... what is going on now? Somehow it has happened that Alena has moved ever nearer to Ego on the blanket. Her well-toned leg bare beneath her brief athletic shorts, is now practically intertwined with his. And, look over there on the other side of the blanket! Did Gianluigi just eat something out of the palm of Mrs. Ego's hand?

Ego glances back at Alena. Her smile is soft and open and her eyes speak of dark desire. She touches Ego's hand. He looks to his wife, and she nods her assent...

A few months have passed. The Egos have moved on to a new home, and the picnic event seems like a bit of encapsulated dream to Ego. Then one day he overhears Mrs. Ego laughing on the phone and then uttering small endearment in Italian. For a moment, he is seized with jealousy and anger. Then, suddenly, unbidden, thought of the cute girl in 6B who seems to keep breaking things just so she can have him come fix them while she lounges about or performs curtsy lunges in bikini comes to mind. And, then, Ego smiles to himself and realizes how lucky he is to have such a confident, attractive, powerful woman as his wife.

I suspect people IRL dismiss the poly label. There is nothing unusual about someone in their early twenties wanting a little variety.

From what I've observed, when the right person comes along, the variety seeking behavior wanes. This is probably what the women pretending to be ok with it are hoping for.

Dating is what it used to be called.

I can see that it would make the search problem more difficult, if the honest goal is an open long term relationship. Correctly filtering the closet monogamist​s is probably the challenge - because poly would be a premium trait in a woman, it comes at the price of discounting other traits. So the closet ladies will present as better than the true poly ladies, because they don't have the trait discounting.

A monogamist tolerating variety seeking behavior, but secretly hoping for change, is also a trait discounting attribute, IMO.

You could allocate a lot more market value to other traits, by releasing the variety seeking behavior / LTR combination. You could also be miserable with the trade off.

I never agreed with the mentality that you should change to get a "better" partner. Be the person you want to be, enjoy the partner(s) who like you. The important thing is keeping your expectations in line with your values.

A 25 year old fit poly woman building a yurt, with previous sailing experience, and with desire to sail on a small schooler one day just sent me a long message on OKc. She describes herself as having depth, a probing curiosity, and overly emphatic.Self-identified INFJ.

Ego said: I got the Marriage Minute email from the Gottman Institute this morning. It included a link to their Sound Relationship House. Good timing, eh?

lol- I skimmed the site and they had me at "research-based." I guess the question becomes why wouldn't it be possible to envision or maintain a number of such solid residences/relationships? Obviously, the historical and genetic record of humans reveals that polygamy is a frequently practiced alternative. The modern construct is that polygamy is usually a situation women accept due to relative lack of power. IOW, the mythology is that females are, or should be, the keepers and promoters of monogamy. This theory is supported by cross-cultural studies, with the very, IMHO, important exception of affluent sub-cultures where females have the ability to earn and own property.

When I was a young teenager, my fantasy was that I would make enough money that I could own my own cottage/farm, and I would have lots of children and they would all have very different fathers, so they would all be interesting and different. But, I knew men will fight for dominance/exclusivity, and I don't like promoting conflict, so I imagined having serial relationships with my baby-daddies. Obviously, I chickened out on that plan, and I also realized that I wanted my children to have the benefit of as much interaction with their father as possible. But, really, I am still the same as when I was young. I like teaching a variety of young children from all over the world, and I like dating and/or having relationships with a variety of men. But, I am still a little bit frightened that I will be stoned in the public square for admitting this, so that makes me think that there are probably other women who pretend to prefer long-term committed monogamy because they are afraid to defy the strong culturally mandated mores that promote this model as the only "normal" or "healthy" or "natural" way of being.

7Wannabe5 wrote:This theory is supported by cross-cultural studies, with the very, IMHO, important exception of affluent sub-cultures where females have the ability to earn and own property.

In the developed world, the main proponents of this type of arrangement are young people with dreams as fanciful as your farm. Over time they experience the consequences of reality like those we are witnessing with Zalo and realize that they must make the choice I outlined above. Why? Because partners begin to look ahead and realize that kids and family complications and finances and old age are about to make life very tough. Everyone wants to be around when things are twenty-something easy. Human beings learn from experience that those who are less that 100% committed flee when things get tough.

Dragline often says that utopian communities fail unless they are based on religion. He's right. The same is true for this type of arrangement for the exact same reasons. The only time we've seen poly work is when the entire society and the religion enforce it. There may be a few outliers who have made the poly-proof-of-concept a form of religion and are making it work in the child rearing phase. Are there any making it work when one of the partners need elder-care?

You've been remarkably open with your thinking process regarding boyfriends. What happens when he can no longer be the wall of man you need to throw yourself up against, when the money runs out for fancy hotel stays and his gruff, grumpy nature flourishes? That's when a deeper connection keeps monogamous couples together. It is exactly that connection, the relationship je ne sais pas, that does not exist in poly relationships.

Perhaps there is an outlier that I've never seen, so I could be wrong.

7Wannabe5 wrote:This theory is supported by cross-cultural studies, with the very, IMHO, important exception of affluent sub-cultures where females have the ability to earn and own property.

In the developed world, the main proponents of this type of arrangement are young people with dreams as fanciful as your farm. Over time they experience the consequences of reality like those we are witnessing with Zalo and realize that they must make the choice I outlined above.

Ego, this is just one example of a poor relationship with a young 19 yo woman that didn't really know what they wanted nor how to communicate their needs. Even then, we got through some tough spots together. My previous primary-form partners have definitely also been that sustaining wall before too. And besides, I think we should be our own sustaining wall, relying on a partner or partners for that might be asking too much, a potential co-dependency that I experienced when my partner was no longer there recently. Maybe a therapist or bank might be better for that SHTF role.

Polyamory can definitely work long-term, I really should not need to be arguing this. There's a college staff person that has been in a polyam relationship for the past 20 years, and a friend of one of my professors has been in one for over three decades. There are many more successful examples at the More Than Two website and with many polyam advocacy groups. Yes, it would help if western society at large was more accepting of polyam relationships; if "well-intentioned" friends didn't try to break me up with my partners, for example, that'd be great in maintaining the relationship over time.

Thankfully most of the people I date are outliers anyway, and they usually don't take what others say too seriously.

Besides, I'm now together with three affectionate close friends, and that's a whole lot of trust, open communication, care, and physical affection coming my way. <3 I also have an even clearer idea of what open communication and trust looks like after spending time romantically with many women, a huge help in identifying potential long-term partners. Fingers-crossed for the mysterious 25 yo poly woman. Who know's we could be sailing the seas of love as well as the ocean!

Ego said: There may be a few outliers who have made the poly-proof-of-concept a form of religion and are making it work in the child rearing phase. Are there any making it work when one of the partners need elder-care?

I find this rather non-coherent coming from somebody who would be the last to recommend that an individual choose to stick at a career for golden-handcuff pension benefits or build a house with ramps and handicap bars due to statistical likelihood of needing them someday. Also, I think it is incredibly unfair given the reality that the vast majority of the time it is females who provide elder care for partners, widowed fathers and even brothers. More than 70% of nursing home residents are female. If insuring some degree of elder care was my primary concern to be addressed by investing in caring, affectionate relationship(s), I would obviously be much better off investing further in my relationships with my younger sisters and my daughter. That said, I think it is highly likely that I will end up providing a good deal of elder care for one or more of my male peers, no matter what other choices I make, unless I assertively avoid it. People who have not dated past mid-life do not comprehend how quickly these tasks fall on you. I mean, it's like you are barely 3 months into a relationship, and you are the one accompanying him to his colonoscopy appointment. When you hang out with old people, you do old people stuff.

You've been remarkably open with your thinking process regarding boyfriends. What happens when he can no longer be the wall of man you need to throw yourself up against, when the money runs out for fancy hotel stays and his gruff, grumpy nature flourishes? That's when a deeper connection keeps monogamous couples together. It is exactly that connection, the relationship je ne sais pas, that does not exist in poly relationships.

Once again you are confusing "polyamorous" with "immature." Granted, I may be a bit of both (lol), but the concepts are not synonymous. The "wall" is more of a force of character thing. Some people are quite capable of maintaining "force of character" when hooked up to ivy drip and wearing a butt-revealing gown, and I have had just as much fun sleeping in the back of a jeep with a partner as spending the night in a fancy hotel. I just like variety.

7Wannabe5 wrote: I find this rather non-coherent coming from somebody who would be the last to recommend that an individual choose to stick at a career for golden-handcuff pension benefits or build a house with ramps and handicap bars due to statistical likelihood of needing them someday

That is a legitimate criticism, or it would be if the I were arguing that the primary reason to stay together is for elder care. I am not making that argument.

Perhaps you misunderstood because you are exceedingly Homo Economicus in relationship calculations while giving lip service to the importance of art in life. Yet it is the art that is the thing that makes the Homo Economicus calculations moot. The art makes a relationship so much more than the sum of parts. Again, I could be wrong, but I have not seen a relationship that I consider a work of art that involves more than two.

Olaz wrote:Polyamory can definitely work long-term, I really should not need to be arguing this. There's a college staff person that has been in a polyam relationship for the past 20 years, and a friend of one of my professors has been in one for over three decades.

You may be right. My background and experiences may be blinding me to the fact that polyamory can work. But I think if you move from campus you are going to find yourself having to explain polyamory quite a bit more often than you do today, so you should probably get used to it.

I had the good fortune to attend Russell Conwell's workingman's university and for the last two years moved from the ghetto-campus across town to live in the off-campus housing of the local ivy league school. The difference was remarkable. I learned the meaning of the word cloistered.

There has been a lot written about how adolescence is extending in both directions with sexual maturation occurring much earlier yet adult-aged kids remaining dependent on their parents well into their thirties. Adolescence was once a process that lasted a few years. It now goes on for decades. I believe this contributes to the popularity of polyamory. Regardless, people eventually transition to adulthood.

Today I live in a bastion of liberalism and know a wide variety of people of all ages and yet I've never seen a work-of-art relationship with more than two adults.

Ego said: Perhaps you misunderstood because you are exceedingly Homo Economicus in relationship calculations while giving lip service to the importance of art in life. Yet it is the art that is the thing that makes the Homo Economicus calculations moot. The art makes a relationship so much more than the sum of parts. Again, I could be wrong, but I have not seen a relationship that I consider a work of art that involves more than two.

Well, since I don't consider "Stranger in a Strange Land" to be a great work of art, there is a level on which I agree with you. Even the word "poly-amory" itself is dorky and awkward. I am not an artist, but...

“I reserve the right to love many different people at once, and to change my prince often.”

― Anaïs Nin

I don't underestimate the power and draw towards the pair-bond, or the beauty that can be achieved in its expression. For instance, I was recently watching a very moving film clip featuring a mated pair of eagles working in tandem to hunt for their young. But, human beings are more self-aware and less locked into patterned behavior than other animals. If two humans, for instance, can consciously choose to engage to form long-term loving, affectionate sexual relationship with no intention to ever have or care for offspring together, if they can create or assign different meaning or purpose to their pair-bond, then why can't humans choose to engage in and express the instinct to couple in a variety of manners, any of which might reach the level of art? Why should it only be possible to partner or collaborate with a number of people in any sort of creative work besides relationship work?

Maybe you are right, and Olaz will suffer the fate of Icarus, and I am just a monkey named Pandora dancing for pennies, but I would note for the record that if you lived in the mid-19th century you might think women wearing bloomers was a ridiculous aesthetic too.

7Wannabe5 wrote:Why should it only be possible to partner or collaborate with a number of people in any sort of creative work besides relationship work?

This really does get to the nub of the problem, doesn't it? Why can people cooperate so well in groups to accomplish a wide variety of projects but multi-partner cooperation falls apart in intimate lifelong relationships? I don't know the answer. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that intimate relationships have an inherent prisoner's dilemma and multi-partner cooperation is more fragile and prone to degenerating into zero-sum. Once a relationship becomes zero-sum it is usually doomed to failure.

James_0011 wrote:@Ego

Have you ever read "Sex at dawn" by Christopher Ryan? He argues that humans are naturally polygamous, and that culture creates monogamy.

I have not, though it does not surprise me. It brings to mind cultures that permit or encourage polyamory. They are not the cultures one would describe as forward-thinking or evolved.

Ego said: This really does get to the nub of the problem, doesn't it? Why can people cooperate so well in groups to accomplish a wide variety of projects but multi-partner cooperation falls apart in intimate lifelong relationships? I don't know the answer. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that intimate relationships have an inherent prisoner's dilemma and multi-partner cooperation is more fragile and prone to degenerating into zero-sum. Once a relationship becomes zero-sum it is usually doomed to failure.

Do people generally cooperate well in groups at the level of art? Musical bands, for instance, are notorious for drama and bad break-ups. Business partnerships not super-stable either, and I am struggling to imagine a truly 3-way egalitarian business partnership. It is also my understanding that coaches are constantly having to promote team goals over individual ego or accomplishment, especially at the highest levels of performance.

"People person" and "artist" don't usually go together in my experience, but if you imagine taking the skill of being a "people person" to the level of art, then the person who achieved that might be polyamorous. I like variety, but I quickly tire in the role of "manager" and I suck at empathetic listening, so it is easier for me to just default to monogamy. It has been my observation that even in most egalitarian monogamous couples, one individual in the duo is usually taking on most of the management functions, and that individual is the one who is most invested in the relationship, while the other partner is the one who is most dependent on the relationship.

I mean non monogamous in the bonobo sense, I.e. Everyone in the tribe has open sexual relations with each other, not non monogamous in the Mormon sense where one man controls multiple wives.

The bonobos are the closest example we have of egalitarian ( or "evolved") human culture (even though they are monkeys but I think you get my point) and a distinct feature of their culture is non monogamy. The chimpanzees on the other hand are more similiar to modern humans in that they have a hierarchy and are essentially a war culture, Chris Ryan argues that this power driven culture is related to controlling female sexuality through monogamy.

Last edited by James_0011 on Mon Mar 20, 2017 7:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah I agree that some sort of culture always exists. However I think just as we can separate culture from nature with diet and nutrition, we can do the same with social relations with sexuality being a part of that.

Of course it would be impossible to create a society without culture so speculation is really all we have.

Chris Ryan doesn't state his hypothesis in the same way I did in the book, the "natural" word is my shorthand way of explaining the concept.

Please also consider that more people are in open relationships (or some form if an alternative relationship) than you know. This sort of thing is taboo and not everyone will talk openly about it especially if they are invoked in "swinging".

There are also cultural differences, a good friend of mine is Italian and she tells me that in Italy it is accepted that married couples will have "lovers" on the side. Relationship boundaries aren't looked upon as rigidly as they are in the US.

@James_0011 said: The bonobos are the closest example we have of egalitarian ( or "evolved") human culture (even though they are monkeys but I think you get my point) and a distinct feature of their culture is non monogamy. The chimpanzees on the other hand are more similiar to modern humans in that they have a hierarchy and are essentially a war culture, Chris Ryan argues that this power driven culture is related to controlling female sexuality through monogamy.

Right. However, I would note that there is just as much or more control of female sexuality in polygynous cultures. Previous to practicing poly-amory, I was in a 19 year modern egalitarian monogamous marriage, a 9 month monogamous contract with a Dom in the BDSM sub-culture, and a 3 year Islamic marriage contract in which I insisted monogamy be practiced. So, I have some experience in how relationship power dynamics play out in varying cultural contexts. On average women hold the least power in polygynous contract and the most power in poly-amorous contract. I suppose that if the Island of the Amazons who practice polyandry, but not polygyny, existed then that would be the realm in which women held even more power than in poly-amory.

One problem with polyamory is that both submissive females and dominant males (and, of course, individuals tending towards the opposite dynamic) tend towards preferring, or retaining, a level of erotic possession in their sexuality and as romantic validation. "You are mine, all mine, and I will do with you as I please.Bwah-ha-ha" and gifts of tiny pink sugar-hearts that bear similar ownership memes. So, the funny thing is that the sort of nerdy human who is best able to compartmentalize or intellectualize erotic play for one set of purposes, can also be the sort of person who is best able to compartmentalize or intellectualize the practice of polyamory for another set of purposes. I suppose this is similar to how playing at sports releases some of the instincts and energies that might otherwise be exerted in warfare, but an individual who is a mature, civilized, "good sport" will quickly, fluidly, switch gears when the game is over and shake hands with members of the opposing team and invite them to convivial event at local pub. This sort of civility is also exhibited in casual sexual encounters between mature, experienced individuals. (However, it can also be great fun when you are 51 to pretend like you are a 15 year old protecting her virginity in the back seat of a car with a 58 year old man.)

Anyways, one of the reasons why I crashed and burned on polyamorous practice is that I observed some signs of lack of civility in the interactions between some of my male partners, and I probably over-reacted. An observation I would suggest to Olaz is that it is true that he may experience a good deal of difficulty competing with men who are willing to offer and insist on monogamy in our culture, which is now to some extent the culture of the world, in which every female will have watched umpteen Disney Princess movies by the time she reaches sexual maturity, and is therefore drilled in the notion that your sexuality ( and/or your heart's affection) is something you only fully own until some attractive and powerful man claims it for his own.